Tamil Notices Are Often Translated Wrongly, Because Printing Companies May Not Have The Font Installed

Tamil Notices Are Wrongly Translated More Often Than Other Mother Tongues

You’d probably think creative agencies would’ve been more cautious in dealing with Tamil translations, especially after calls for “a more rigorous process” in vetting public messages established by the National Translation Council earlier this year.

Clearly, the idea of proper vetting didn’t sink in with some.

People have once again brought up the issue of Tamil being poorly or wrongly translated in public notices.

Lost-in-translation, again

As Singapore is founded upon the ideals of multiculturalism, this mistake sparked an outcry amongst Singaporeans. Most of whom emphasised how translations for every language should be given due attention.

In other words, simply relying on Google Translate should not be an option.

Two years after the incident, organisers of NDP 2017 were somehow guilty of the same blunder. This time, as per Singaporean tradition, NDP 2017 had its theme #OneNationTogether written in four languages. Once again, the translation in Tamil was missing a few letters and characters.

Why do we repeatedly struggle to get simple translations of an official Singaporean language right?

System incompatibility to blame for language lapses

To be fair, some argue that the prevailing reason for mistranslated Tamil is the incompatibility of software used by design and printing companies.

Apparently, according to some graphic designers, certain computers used by printers may not have the appropriate or standard Tamil fonts installed. This inevitably results in missing or jumbled letters within sentences.

Thus, the incorrect Tamil phrases are usually lost in translation when sent to the printers who do not check on the final artwork’s copy.

Even if they do realise the mistake, the printing firm is not in charge of making the corrections.